On eggs, neonates, and chicks: The breeding season is on!

A happy occasion: the lesser kestrels have nestlings. They are still very young and hide in their nesting box, but every now and then our keeper gets a glimpse of them.

The rock hyraxes too have produced young! They are very shy, but if you stand very still and wait patiently you might see them come out of their hide, start to wander around, and interact with each other.

In the middle of April our females tortoises started to lay eggs. Their keeper, Barak Levi, encircled the eggs with netting to prevent the crows from reaching the eggs and the young when they hatch. We are now waiting patiently for the hatching, due about 90 days after the eggs are laid.

At the beginning of May another young animal joined our Garden: a female mole-rat about three months old. She had been found in Holon's sand dunes and was brought to the Garden. It was impossible to return her to her natural habitat so we have gladly adopted her. We are hoping to build her a spacious exhibition in the near future, so she will feel at home and we will be able to show our visitors the tunnel system that she digs in the soil.

As they do every year in this season, the yellow-legged gulls are nesting on the main grass. The first chicks can be seen wandering around the Garden.

A confused breeder…! This sweet motherly hen in the photo found a hidden peahen nest, and decided to adopt the nest and the eggs. Andy why? Who can guess what goes on in a hen's head? And what will happen to the chicks? We shall wait and see, and maybe they'll become the Garden's version of the Ugly Duckling?....